It is known to have precisely tensioned wires in a wide variety of contexts including musical instruments such as guitars. With particular regard to electric guitars, it is known to equip such an instrument with a tremolo system allowing the user to radically and quickly fluctuate the tension in the strings. Furthermore, such variation is known to cause the string tension to change even after the tremolo is relaxed, i.e. the instrument goes out of tune.
One component of this change in tension is due to the strings hanging up on the nut of the guitar. It is known to use lubricants on the nut to prevent such hang ups; however, this is also known to be an imperfect solution which merely mitigates rather than eliminates the tendency to go out of tune. It also tends to be a messy and short-lived solution.
Clamps have been installed in guitars which typically are bolted to the instrument, replacing the nut. This can be effective, but it requires radically and irreversibly modifying the instrument. This is undesirable to many musicians, and may be unacceptable in the case of particularly valuable or collectible instruments. Even when a clamp is installed, the user is inconvenienced because he must compensate for the fact that the string tension is affected by the clamping process. Therefore, in order to maintain perfect tuning pitch, the musician must install a tremolo system, or a tail piece, which houses a fine-tuner system. Similar to installing a clamp, it may not be desirable to install a new tremolo system and may require milling or otherwise irreversibly modifying the instrument.
What is needed is a device which helps to prevent an instrument from going out of tune, while not requiring physically altering the instrument. Some embodiments of the present invention may provide one or more benefits or advantages over the prior art.